My Heart Beats, Too
by Unmasked Potential
Summary: Clint Barton is unamused to find out that while away on a mission, Loki has been staying with the Avengers at Stark Tower for three months. The archer begrudgingly comes to realize that even monsters have a heart. Set after Avengers. Brief mention to AoU.


Loki sighed softly to himself and rolled his eyes. The archer was behaving like a childish goon and his patience with the mortal was running thin.

Sure, he couldn't stab the fool (Thor would frown at that and glower at him heavily with some labored speech at the tip of his tongue) but he was beginning to think he could try something to move his point across.

"No! No way, there's no **fucking** way we're housing  that crazy bag of dicks," Barton furiously pointed at the Trickster, who raised a slim brow in contempt.

"Clint, he's already stayed here a good three months. He hasn't tried killing any of us during that time." The Captain stated this calmly, his shoulders heavy with this task of calming an irate archer.

"Yet! Or are you all forgetting the atrocities this monster has committed! Have you all forgotten the mind fucking I got for days?" Clint roared in response, a vein in his forehead bulging.

"Nope, hadn't heard a thing about that."

"You got mind controlled?"

"Really? Nooooo."

"….mind fucked?"

 _This is going to take centuries,_ Loki thought to himself, eyeing the archer whose back wasn't completely turned away from the demigod, but wasn't facing him entirely. Loki decided it was enough of an angle that the archer wouldn't get away from what the Trickster was about to do next.

As Barton began raging at Natasha and Tony - for different reasons, of course - Loki made his hastened move, launching towards the archer. His left arm clad in his heavy armor wrapped around Barton's midsection, pinning the archer's arm to his waist as Loki's other arm wrapped around the archer's shoulders. Loki's right hand pressed tightly over Barton's ear, guiding the unsuspecting man to his chest.

With his neck extended and his green eyes focused straight ahead, Loki began holding the archer closely and intimately.

"What the **FUCK!"** Bellowed the surprised archer. His blue eyes bulged from their sockets, nearly exploding from his skull as he uselessly attempted to squirm free from Loki's strong hold.

"Shhhh…. Listen." Stated Loki's calm and well controlled voice. Silky smooth as it may have been, Barton was not amused in the slightest.

The archer squirmed and yelped, the vision of his teammates becoming shrouded by a kaleidoscope of fuzzy colors.

Panic swarmed his system like a next of bees and his heart hammered into his chest wall as he found flashes of other missions and dangers filling his mind.

 _Get an arrow, get an arrow, getanARROW!_ His brain screamed at him to attack - but where - where was his perpetrator? His breath came out in quickened gasps, only heightening the swimming of his vision as the world became as murky as New York City's finest puddles.

"Hush - " Loki's voice enveloped Barton like a blanket, tying him back to his anger and the present moment. "- **Listen."**

With one last thrust and grunt, Barton's frame eased into reluctance, his skin being the first to register the warmth he was laying upon. The leather and metal of Loki's armor shifted up and down beneath his cheek and only then could he hear the rhythmic beat encompassing his mind.

 _Thwump thwump-tha. Thwump thwump-tha. Thwump thwump-tha. Thwump thwump-tha. Thwump thwump-tha. Thwump thwump-tha._

A heartbeat.

Pressed against his face was a heartbeat.

And not just anyone's heartbeat, either. Fucking **Loki's** unasked for, intrusive, and beating all the same heart.

Clint couldn't help but think of Laura then. Couldn't help but think of his little kiddos and hearing their hearts beat over the ultrasound.

A heartbeat.

A light of hope. A beacon. A form of life. Making and sustaining Life.

His own heart skipped a beat at the nagging half thought that slipped by his awareness of how this heartbeat, his heartbeat, all of the freakin' heartbeats would one day silence.

 _Talk about getting morbid, Clint._

Next thing he knew, he caught only part of the muffled words that came between the beats -

 _Thathwump thathwump thathwump tha…_

" - let him go."

 _Thathwump thathwump thathwump tha…_

"Nah, I mean, he's pretty damn cozy right there."

 _Thathwump thathwump thathwump tha…_

" - get any ideas."

Out of the corner of his eye, Barton spotted the faint outline of Rogers with his shield outstretched before him. From that, he inferred some of his other teammates, sans Stark, were also equipped with weapons at the ready.

Hearing one last beat, Loki released Clint from his cocoon, his arms settling limply to his sides. Backing away from the archer, the demigod's eyes pierced his own knowingly.

"Call me what you wish, Barton. At the end of the day, I still breathe as you do, and I have a heart that beats, just as yours does." Loki's eyes lit up in consideration as he corrected, "Certainly mine is more resilient lasting for centuries longer -" he smirked "- however there are less differences between us than either of us care to acknowledge."

Loki casually resumed his former position of leaning against Stark's silver walls. There were only a few murmurings coming from the archer, so that the team was able to take the situation in stride and reach their conclusion that Loki's quiet ticker spoke more volumes than their shapeless words could have.

Before long, Stark nuzzled up close to the Trickster, pouting slightly.

"I thought I got first dibs in listening to your heart."

Loki didn't bother to suppress the chuckle and grin that lit up his features.

"It seems like you're only getting second place now."

"Well, that sucks. I've always loved first place."

"Maybe first place doesn't always love you back."

"Ohohoh, harsh dude. You know -"

And with that, the hearts in the Avengers Tower continued to beat on, and on, and on . . . .


End file.
